Joe Biden has repeatedly drawn a contrast between himself and his rivals by calling for a return to civility and compromise in the face of a resurgent Left that is demanding scorched earth political warfare. But it’s just bizarre that he has chosen to make this point by, of all people, hailing his working relationship with two Democratic segregationist senators.
At a New York fundraiser, Biden started off with a fairly typical riff on the need for consensus building in politics.
“I know the new Left tells me that I’m — this is old-fashioned,” he said. “Well guess what? If we can’t reach a consensus in our system, what happens? It encourages and demands the abuse of power by a president. That’s what it does. You have to be able to reach consensus under our system — our Constitutional system of separation of powers.”
At that point, Biden could have chosen any example from his Senate career in which he reached compromises with people with whom he disagreed to advance goals that would be broadly supported by the liberals of today. Instead, he highlighted his ability to work with two segregationists — James Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge.
It isn’t exactly a savvy comeback to those who consider you “old-fashioned” to bring up long-dead senators who, to the extent that anybody knows them at all, remembers them for their vile racism.
The statement is inevitably going to bring up Biden’s own past remarks on segregation and busing in in 1975, unearthed by my colleague Alana Goodman.
“I think the concept of busing … that we are going to integrate people so that they all have the same access and they learn to grow up with one another and all the rest, is a rejection of the whole movement of black pride,” said Biden. He went on to argue that desegregation was “a rejection of the entire black awareness concept, where black is beautiful, black culture should be studied; and the cultural awareness of the importance of their own identity, their own individuality.”
Biden continues to have solid, though far from insurmountable, leads in polls for the 2020 nomination, and it’s unlikely that anything that happens in June is going to prove fatal for his candidacy. But from his reversals on taxpayer funding for abortion to this, Biden continues to reinforce doubts people have had about whether the elderly, gaffe-prone, two-time loser in presidential politics, will be able to sustain his leads once people start paying closer attention.
